


the five loaves of Jean Valjean

by voksen



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: 5 Things, Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Happy, Fix-It, Gen, Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 17:48:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voksen/pseuds/voksen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Late one December evening, M. Isabeau catches a thief in his bakery.<br/> </p>
<p>For the meme prompt:<br/><i>The baker Valjean was trying to steal from did not press charges. Instead he took Valjean on as an apprentice, so he could work off the damages.</i><br/><i>Years later, Valjean opens his own bakery in M. Sur M. He ends up falling heads over heels in love with the local police inspector, who always seems to linger by Valjean' s shop on his patrol.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	the five loaves of Jean Valjean

M. Isabeau has a good life. If it is not perfect, well - whose is? But he has a trade and a shop of his own; there have been years when he has had to tighten his belt, but he has never gone hungry, which is more than many can say. He earns an honest living and he is good at what he does. It would be greedy to wish for more.

And he is content, at any rate, though he lives alone without even a housekeeper. He had once had a wife; she had died young and their infant son with her, and he has been in no hurry to remarry. There had once been an apprentice, but a year or two back he had grown footloose and flighty with youth and wandered off to Paris to seek an easier, more fashionable fortune. Now there is only the baker and his cats.

After the death of Mme. Isabeau he had sold their home and moved into the small apartment above his shop; he lives there still, and it is there he returns every evening. In the winters he closes early, since few people dare the snowy streets after dark even for his bread and there is no point in wasting lamp oil to stand alone in an empty shop. This winter has been particularly cold and the day worse than most; M. Isabeau is, instead of tallying tomorrow's orders in his mind as he usually does, thinking to himself only how nice the fire in his bedroom will feel, how fine the cup of tea he habitually takes before bed will be.

Distracted by these pleasant thoughts, he forgets to fetch the lone unsold loaf from the window display before he locks his front door, clears the cash drawer and puts out the lights. He has set the kitchen ready for the next day's baking and has his hand on the banister of his small back staircase when he hears the crash.

There is glass on the floor, a shadow in the window, and without thinking he leaps to the door, unlocks it, and runs after the fleeing thief. M. Isabeau is a strong man, powerful from hefting casks of flour, sacks of grain, and great trays of dough; his wind is good, his legs are warm, his belly is full. The man he chases is underfed and half-frozen, and M. Isabeau lays hands on him before they have gone a block.

The thief lets out a curious whimpering noise, falling to his knees in M. Isabeau's iron grip. The forgotten loaf of bread is still clutched, crumpled, in his fists. "Please," he says, and only that.

M. Isabeau closes his mouth on his unvoiced shout and looks down. He cannot see any detail of the man he's holding; the snowclouds have been thick all evening, blotting out the moonlight, and his eyes are not the keenest. "Who are you?" he demands, and when the man does not immediately answer, shakes him roughly. "Speak up, or I'll call for the police!"

"Valjean," he mumbles to M. Isabeau's shoes. "The boy is dying."

"Boy?"

"My sister's boy. Starving." Valjean is trembling beneath his hands, though M. Isabeau is uncertain whether it is for cold or from fear. He thinks of his broken window, of the trouble it will be to have it replaced, of the mess it will be to clean glass and snow from the shop. He thinks also of a small stone in the churchyard.

Without another word he pulls Valjean to his feet and drags him bodily back to the bakery; there seems to be no fight in his thief, which M. Isabeau takes as a good sign; perhaps he is not, at least, a brawler and a murderer as well.

He pushes Valjean into the shop, gives thanks that his neighbors do not open their shops on the Lord's day and so no one is here to see him making a fool of himself over a stranger, bars the door behind them, and lights the lamp again.

Valjean stands blinking at him, his thin face blank and dazed; a lank, shaggy mop of hair falls over his face but from what M. Isabeau can see of him he does not look particularly criminal. He is built well: deep and broad through the shoulders and the chest, though his thin threadbare clothes hang more loosely than suit his frame.

A draft of cold wind from the broken window abruptly sours M. Isabeau's mood and he does not bother to hold back his frown. "What do you do, Valjean," he says, "when you are not robbing honest men?"

Valjean ducks his head, guilt hanging about him like dust in the air. He twists at the bread in his hand; the movement draws M. Isabeau's eye and even as Valjean says, "I'm a pruner, monsieur, I work with the trees, but there is no work, no work anywhere - you see, the winter - the trees, all of the orchards, the gardens - monsieur, it is too cold, the growth is not good, they--" M. Isabeau sees that his sleeve is soaked with blood; that the loaf in his hands, too, is sodden-red, and that soon it will drip onto his freshly-swept floor.

"Ah!" he says, interrupting Valjean's explanations, and snatches up a cloth from one of the low tables, advancing quickly on Valjean and wrapping it about his arm and hand altogether just before it is too late.

Valjean startles again as he is grabbed, but looks down, sees the blood soaking through the cloth, and relaxes visibly. He swallows. It is loud in the quiet of the shop; an interruption to the whisper of the wind through the window. "Monsieur," he says quietly. "Monsieur, I - ah. I did not want to steal. Please believe I am not a thief. But --"

"The boy," M. Isabeau says.

Valjean nods.

The blood is not stopping and with a sigh M. Isabeau heads towards the large kitchen, beckoning Valjean to follow - if he bleeds on the stone flags there it will be less trouble. He leads Valjean to the large sink, pries the ruined loaf from his hands and peels up his torn sleeve. Valjean, still passive, does not protest even when shards of window-glass pull free of cloth and skin and fall into the stone well. The cut is not deep, though it is bleeding quickly and Valjean is beginning to look rather paler in the face.

M. Isabeau pushes him further against the sink so that he bleeds into it instead of on the floor and retrieves a small box from beneath a cabinet. The contents are mostly salves, as his kitchen injuries run to minor burns, but he has sufficient bandages to wrap Valjean's wound tightly. When that is done and he has cleaned the kitchen - again - he stands back and looks at the man.

A tree-pruner, he thinks, his lips pursed. Well, there had been strength in those arms, despite that uncanny docility; if it is only hunger and cold that dulls his mind, if he is more intelligent than he seems, it is barely possible -- No. What is he thinking?

Valjean is staring at the floor as if he expects it to open and swallow him whole into Hell, or perhaps prison. M. Isabeau shakes his head slowly. In the back of his mind, a child's cry echoes.

"You will sleep here tonight, in the kitchen," he says abruptly, before he can think better of it. Valjean's shaggy head snaps up, his eyes wide with confusion. "By the oven it will be warm enough for you. Tomorrow morning you will patch my window." A new pane would have to be ordered; he would have to send for one specially, it would be expensive - never mind that. "You will help with Monday's baking."

"But," Valjean says.

"Or," M. Isabeau says, "I could call for the police."

"Yes, monsieur," Valjean says, and hangs his head again.

 

M. Isabeau does not sleep peacefully despite the fire in his bedroom hearth and the anticipated comfort of his tea; his dreams are full of children; he wakes well before dawn, as he always does, but this morning it is with Marie's name in his mouth and the feel of soft, unmarked skin beneath his hard fingers.

He dresses quickly and hurries downstairs. Valjean is asleep in front of the oven, pressed close to it for the warmth of the banked fire within, and M. Isabeau scowls at him. His dreams are too close, too present. He cannot forget-- "Wake up!" he says more sharply than he had meant, and Valjean jostles awake with a start and a gasp, looking about himself uncomprehendingly before turning his gaze up to M. Isabeau. "There's wood in the shed in the back," he says. "Find a slat and put it against the hole you so kindly made in my window last night, clean the glass from the floor, then bring four armfuls of wood for the fire."

"Yes, monsieur," Valjean mumbles, and swings himself up from the ground, hurrying out the back door as M. Isabeau points it out to him.

M. Isabeau puts down a saucer for his mousers first, then hefts up a new barrel of flour from his stores and fills the crock of water from the pump. By the time he has attended to the leavened starter, Valjean has crept back through the kitchen with a likely-looking board in his hand and out into the main shop. M. Isabeau watches him go, then slings on his white apron and sets to work.

When Valjean comes back again he has finished the kneading and turned the first batch of dough out into loaves for its second rising. The scent of yeast and salt are light in the air and the erstwhile thief's stomach grumbles loudly as he passes through. He does not dawdle, however, but hurries back to the shed to retrieve the firewood, stacking it carefully beside the oven. M. Isabeau checks on his dough when Valjean has finished carrying wood. It is quick and soft beneath his fingers, swelling as it should; satisfied, he brushes his hands clean and joins Valjean by the oven. "Good," he says, and notes that Valjean sneaks him a wide-eyed glance at the word. He swings the door open and begins to heft the wood in; without being asked, Valjean begins to pass it to him piece by piece.

"This is how much goes in for a Monday's baking," he says, when he has fed the fire enough, when the flames have caught at the first pieces and begun to roar up. _There is no need to explain it to him, Maubert, unless you have already decided,_ he thinks, _Unless you are a fool._ He frowns ferociously at the oven; his fingers itch for the delicacies of finework to calm his nerves. Were the season better, if the harvest had not been so abominably poor the past year, he would make a frivolous batch or four of _molettes_ , Monday or not. The careful succession of measurements required never fails to improve his temper, but it is out of the question. Butter and dried fruit are too scarce and the law too strict. He will make milk rolls instead. If he waters the milk and does not sell them too dearly no one will begrudge it of him.

Well. "Go and wash your hands at the pump," he says shortly. Valjean jumps to his orders; that is a good sign, at least. He finds his third-best apron - still usable, though scorched across the front and not suited for custom - and thrusts it at Valjean when he comes back in, water speckled dark over his bandaged arm. Valjean puts it on obediently.

He still cannot quite believe he is doing this. "Come here, boy," he says, only to find that Valjean has already trailed after him like a pup at its master's heels. He purses his lips and gently touches a risen loaf, showing Valjean the dent, the spring. "Like this," he says. "Do you see? The bread must be alive to the touch or you will bake only worthless bricks unfit for dogs - like that idiot Moreau."

Valjean nods.

"Do you see?" M. Isabeau repeats. "I know you have a tongue in your head. If you do not answer me then I will assume you cannot learn and you will be turned out."

"Yes, mon--" Valjean gives an almost violent start. "What?"

It is well past the point of no return. The decision is made. M. Isabeau tuts irritatedly. "If you cannot get work... _pruning,_ then you will work here, for me, until you have paid off the cost of that window. Do you think glass is free? No. Now come." Hefting a peel, he slips it under a group of loaves and carries them to the oven. "The largest loaves, the heaviest ones, go in the back and along the side," he says, "where the fire is hottest. There will always be some who want larger and some smaller; you must learn your customers to learn your bread."

"Yes, monsieur," Valjean echoes when M. Isabeau pauses to open the oven and arrange the dough where it belongs.

When he turns back, Valjean has a second peel in hand and is carefully picking up the next group of heavy loaves. He is a bit awkward, his motions far from deft, but, M. Isabeau admits, he seems eager to work; eager to learn. And he is strong enough for the carrying and strong enough that his unpracticed arms do not fail even at kneading the heavy dough.

Even with an unskilled assistant and the necessity of explaining everything he does, the work goes more quickly than usual with two sets of hands; they are arranging the fresh loaves on the shelves in the storefront a few minutes earlier than normal, and M. Isabeau smiles to himself despite the ugly boards that block a square of his window. This may yet serve, he thinks, and only then notices the way that Valjean's hands are trembling as he sets out the bread.

M. Isabeau turns back for a moment, despite a small cynical voice warning him against leaving a bread-thief alone unguarded with the day's work. The loaves that are not quite perfect are lying on the great table; a bit burnt here from being set too close to the oven wall, warped or twisted in the rising there. There are more of them than usual, due to his new apprentice's small missteps, but still not overly many. Normally they would go to his own meals or for rasping. Instead M. Isabeau wraps them quickly and ties them in a rag bundle, then returns to the front. Valjean is still carefully, carefully working at the display, though now with fresh eyes M. Isabeau can see the tension shot through his shoulders, the worry that lies heavy in his bones, a worry that edges on despair.

He holds out the bundle. "Valjean."

Valjean turns and looks at him. His eyes are dull with hunger, his face blank. He looks not the obedient, almost-interested creature of the morning's work, but more the thief from the night before - and then he focuses on M. Isabeau's hands and the life held therein. He blinks once, twice, his eyes clear, and he reaches out with shaking hands to take the bread.

"A baker does not starve," M. Isabeau says.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Bread in bleak midwinter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/824282) by [acaramelmacchiato](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acaramelmacchiato/pseuds/acaramelmacchiato)




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